It’s been a good year in the stock market.
Through the close on Friday, the U.S. stock market is up 20% in 2024.
The Russell 3000 Index is a good approximation of the total U.S. stock market. The index now has a little less than 2,700 stocks.
Out of 2,670 stocks, 101 are up 100% or more this year (3.8% of the total). Thirteen stocks are up 300% or more, five are up 500% or greater and there is one stock in the one common club, which is up more than 1,000%.1
Not bad.
Interestingly enough, even in a good year for the index, there are plenty of stocks that are down big too. More than 1,000 stocks are down this year or 40% of the total. There are more stocks down 50% or worse this year (137) than up 100% or more (101).
Of course, the biggest stocks tend to have outsized control of the returns in a market cap weighted index (by design). Five stocks are responsible for around half the gains on the S&P 500 this year:
Nvidia alone makes up one-quarter of the gain.
I’m doing some research for a project on the dot-com bubble of the 1990s, so I decided to look at the return profile of the stock market at the height of the insanity in 1999.
The stock market finished that year with a 24% gain but there was plenty of silliness beneath the surface.
Nearly 350 stocks were up 100% or more in 1999 (14% of the total). More than 100 stocks were up 300% or better (4% of the total) and an astonishing 13 stocks finished the year with gains in excess of 1,000%.2
Most of those companies were of the dot-com variety as investors went crazy for Internet stocks.